Weeknotes 8

A diverse range of subjects in this week’s post. Starting with work and ending with pubs and beer!

Web Design and Development

Another relatively quiet week for me in my freelance business. I published an article about Easy Website Backups and continued work on the new site for CVW Web Design.

I also started work on a new site using the Foundation framework. I quite like it because there’s a lot in the framework and that should mean less testing is needed. On the other hand, unless I carry out a lot of pruning, the site’s CSS file does end up being larger than it might be. But, for this project, it’s about getting something that works within a couple of days. That’s the thing.

I’ve worked with Foundation a couple of times but I still haven’t found the best way to work with it (for me). Getting started takes time because I try different install options. None of these have won me over yet.

It’s a choice between editing the CSS files or work with an installation that uses package managers (Bower or npm). In this case, I’m using the CSS files (with a bit of Sass), but I spent a couple of hours getting to that point.

Next time, I may look into using CodeKit to install Foundation. I think I just need to spend more time on one install method and focus on that.

Running

It’s been a very cold, snow-filled week in the UK and Tuesday evening’s regular club run with Horsham Joggers was a bit of a challenge. Getting out of the house was the difficult bit! Yet, despite reduced numbers, the run was a really good one.

We ran for just under an hour (5.6 miles) and it was great to be out. After the first mile, I didn’t notice the cold at all.

I ran with a small group that was mostly friends and it felt very chilled (in the relaxed sense). That’s probably because we ran at a slow pace and took it easy because of the icy conditions. It just felt very non-pressured.

Pubs and Beer

My personal website, Horsham Pub Guide, is where I write occasional posts about the pub and beer scene in Horsham. On the site, I like to support the little guy. Small breweries. Free house pubs. This week, there’s been two items of news in that respect.

Dark Star Brewing (small independent brewery) were bought by Fullers (medium-large brewery company). This deal might be a good thing for both. But, it might be that the smaller company gets swallowed up. However, I’m not saying this will definitely end badly. Let’s see how both companies work together.

Definite good news though is that the King’s Arms pub in Horsham is now a free house (no longer tied to a specific brewery). I visited on Friday because it was their re-opening night after refurbishment. The pub is very old (~ 350 years) and it’s been vastly improved by the refurb. It has two small bars but they both seem bigger than before. And some of the walls have been stripped of the old decor to reveal the original walls behind. The ‘new’ pub looks great!

Even better is that the pub were serving three local beers from small breweries in Horsham (Chapeau Brewing, Welton’s and Dark Star). Fantastic!

There was a great atmosphere in the pub when I was there. I’ll be returning soon.